US and Canadian auto and heavy equipment dealers are having to revert to pen and paper because of a cybersecurity incident affecting CDK Global. The company’s software is used by 15,000 auto dealers including heavy equipment dealers. The company offers numerous services and products, such as digital retail tools and IT solutions.
What We Know So Far
While this is an ongoing incident, here are some of the things we know so far.
On Wednesday, CDK spokesperson Lisa Finney said in a statement: “We are actively investigating a cyber incident. Out of an abundance of caution and concern for our customers, we have shut down most of our systems and are working diligently to get everything up and running as quickly as possible.”
Later that day the company announced that most of the critical computer systems were back online. But Thursday morning, the company sent dealerships another message saying that things had deteriorated.
“Late in the evening of June 19, we experienced an additional cyber incident and proactively shut down most of our systems. In partnership with third party experts, we are assessing the impact and providing regular updates to our customers,” CDK said in a statement shared Thursday morning. “We remain vigilant in our efforts to reinstate our services and get our dealers back to business as usual as quickly as possible.”
The company has shared with dealers that the systems could be down for several days. Auto dealers are particularly concerned because of the timing. This is an important time in car sales, being it is early in the summer, and some car dealers are having to turn customers away.
While most of the national attention has focused on auto dealerships, CDK Global also has a large footprint in agricultural equipment, working with dealers much as it does in the auto industry.
Conflicting reports say the initial attack may have taken place Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. It is, as of this writing, unclear who was behind the attack. It is also unclear how long CDK Global’s systems may be down, but if history is any indication, it could be a period of time before the company’s systems are fully operational. This means dealers that use CDK Global’s systems should prepare for this to last for at least several more days.
Defender Recommendations
Navigating this incident will be different for every dealer and every situation. However, one recommendation from Defender is that dealers should document as much as possible.
Dealers should be keeping records of how much this incident has cost them, whether that be in lost sales, additional time for employees to do their jobs, or any payroll hurdles the dealer has had to overcome.
Dealers should be documenting in both time and money what this incident has cost them. Detailed records will help with both any insurance claims they must file based on the incident and / or any punitive damages they will seek from the incident.